EFFECT OF WEEDS CONTROL AND GROWTH PROMOTERS SPRAY ON QUALITY AND QUANTITY OF POMEGRANATE (Punica granatum) CV. SALAMI YIELD

Abstract

An experiment was conducted during growing season 2015 at a private orchard in Diyala governorate on pomegranate (punica granatum) cv. Salami 10 years old trees trained on three stems and planted 3.5*3.5 m to reveal the effect of chemical weed control using glyphosate herbicide at 0, 1200 gm.ha-1 and the effect of growth promoters spray include, water, Ascorbic acid 500 mg l-1, Zinc sulphate 200 mg l-1, Seaweed extract at 2%, humic acid 2, 4% and calicium chloride 3% Ca on pomegranate physical and chemical characters and fruit cracking incidence degree using factorial experiment using split plot design with three replications. Glyphosate spray conducted two times (First week of May and August), whereas growth promoters spray were carried out three times (late march, a month after fruit set and at the beginning of fruits coloring). Results showed that weed control treatment caused a significant increase in leaves relative Chlorophyll content (15.93 % over untreated control), total yield and many fruit characters, where yield and fruit weight was increased by 60.64, 18.68 % over untreated control, while the fruit cracking ratio decreased to 14.87 % over untreated control. Growth promoters spray increase relative Chlorophyll content of the leaves, yield quality and quantity. Humic acid spray at 4% gave a significant increase in leaves relative Chlorophyll content, total yield and mean of fruit weight with 86.98, 28.80 % over untreated control, while the fruit cracking ratio decreased to 13.88 % over untreated control.